The Datafile PD-CD 4/DATAFILE_PDCD4.iso/unix/riscbsd/datafile/usd/33_rogue/rogue_me_t

Text File | 1996-10-12 | 22.9 KB | 793 lines

              A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom


                       Michael C. Toy
                  Kenneth C. R. C. Arnold


              Computer Systems Research Group
 Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
                  University of California
                Berkeley, California  94720




is  a  visual  CRT  based  fantasy game which runs under the
UNIX- timesharing system.  -UNIX is a trademark of Bell Lab-
oratories  This paper describes how to play rogue, and gives
a few hints for those who might otherwise get  lost  in  the
Dungeons of Doom.


You  have just finished your years as a student at the local
fighter's guild.  After much practice  and  sweat  you  have
finally completed your training and are ready to embark upon
a perilous adventure.  As a test of your skills,  the  local
guildmasters  have sent you into the Dungeons of Doom.  Your
task is to return with the Amulet of  Yendor.   Your  reward
for the completion of this task will be a full membership in
the local guild.  In addition, you are allowed to  keep  all
the  loot  you bring back from the dungeons.  In preparation
for your journey, you are given an enchanted  mace,  a  bow,
and  a  quiver  of arrows taken from a dragon's hoard in the
far off Dark Mountains.  You are also  outfitted  with  elf-
crafted  armor  and given enough food to reach the dungeons.
You say goodbye to family and friends for what  may  be  the
last  time and head up the road.  You set out on your way to
the dungeons and after several days  of  uneventful  travel,
you see the ancient ruins that mark the entrance to the Dun-
geons of Doom.  It is late at night, so you make camp at the
entrance  and spend the night sleeping under the open skies.
In the morning you gather your weapons, put on  your  armor,
eat  what  is almost your last food, and enter the dungeons.
You have just begun a game of rogue.  Your goal is  to  grab
as  much treasure as you can, find the Amulet of Yendor, and
get out of the Dungeons of Doom alive.  On the screen, a map
of where you have been and what you have seen on the current
dungeon level is kept.  As you explore more of the level, it
appears  on  the screen in front of you.  Rogue differs from
most computer fantasy games in that it is  screen  oriented.
Commands  are  all  one  or  two keystrokes1 2 As opposed to
pseudo English sentences.  and the results of your  commands
are  displayed  graphically  on the screen rather than being
explained in words.3 4 A minimum screen size of 24 lines  by









                             -2-


80  columns  is required.  If the screen is larger, only the
24x80 section will be used for the map.  Another major  dif-
ference  between  rogue  and other computer fantasy games is
that once you have solved all the puzzles in a standard fan-
tasy  game, it has lost most of its excitement and it ceases
to be fun.  Rogue, on the other hand, generates a  new  dun-
geon  every time you play it and even the author finds it an
entertaining and exciting game.  In order to understand what
is  going  on  in  rogue you have to first get some grasp of
what rogue is doing with the screen.  The  rogue  screen  is
intended  to  replace  the  You  can see ... descriptions of
standard fantasy games.  Figure 1 is  a  sample  of  what  a
rogue screen might look like.

center;
ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce0 ce.
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
|    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    +
|    .    .    @    .    .    .    .    ]    .    .    |
|    .    .    .    .    B    .    .    .    .    .    |
|    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    |
-    -    -    -    -    +    -    -    -    -    -    -



Level: 1  Gold: 0      Hp: 12(12)  Str: 16(16)  Arm: 4  Exp: 1/0

                          Figure 1
              At the bottom line of the screen
are a few pieces of cryptic information
describing your current status.
Here is an explanation of what these things mean:
This number indicates how deep you have gone in the dungeon.
It starts at one and goes up as you go deeper into the dungeon.
The number of gold pieces you have managed to find
and keep with you so far.
Your current and maximum health points.
Health points indicate how much damage you can take before you die.
The more you get hit in a fight,
the lower they get.
You can regain health points by resting.
The number in parentheses
is the maximum number your health points can reach.
Your current strength and maximum ever strength.
This can be any integer less than or equal to 31,
or greater than or equal to three.
The higher the number,
the stronger you are.
The number in the parentheses
is the maximum strength you have attained so far this game.
Your current armor protection.
This number indicates how effective your armor is
in stopping blows from unfriendly creatures.
The higher this number is,









                             -3-


the more effective the armor.
These two numbers give your current experience level
and experience points.
As you do things,
you gain experience points.
At certain experience point totals,
you gain an experience level.
The more experienced you are,
the better you are able to fight and to withstand magical attacks.
The top line of the screen is reserved
for printing messages that describe things
that are impossible to represent visually.
If you see a --More-- on the top line,
this means that rogue wants to print another message on the screen,
but it wants to make certain
that you have read the one that is there first.
To read the next message,
just type a space.
The rest of the screen is the map of the level
as you have explored it so far.
Each symbol on the screen represents something.
Here is a list of what the various symbols mean:
This symbol represents you, the adventurer.
These symbols represent the walls of rooms.
A door to/from a room.
The floor of a room.
The floor of a passage between rooms.
A pile or pot of gold.
A weapon of some sort.
A piece of armor.
A flask containing a magic potion.
A piece of paper, usually a magic scroll.
A ring with magic properties
A magical staff or wand
A trap, watch out for these.
A staircase to other levels
A piece of food.
The uppercase letters
represent the various inhabitants of the Dungeons of Doom.
Watch out, they can be nasty and vicious.
Commands are given to rogue by typing one or two characters.
Most commands can be preceded by a count to repeat them
(e.g. typing
10s
will do ten searches).
Commands for which counts make no sense
have the count ignored.
To cancel a count or a prefix,
type <ESCAPE>.
The list of commands is rather long,
but it can be read at any time during the game with the
?
command.
Here it is for reference,









                             -4-


with a short explanation of each command.
The help command.
Asks for a character to give help on.
If you type a
*,
it will list all the commands,
otherwise it will explain what the character you typed does.
This is the What is that on the screen? command.
A
/
followed by any character that you see on the level,
will tell you what that character is.
For instance,
typing
/@
will tell you that the
@
symbol represents you, the player.
Move left.
You move one space to the left.
If you use upper case
h,
you will continue to move left until you run into something.
This works for all movement commands
(e.g.
L
means run in direction
l)
If you use the control
h,
you will continue moving in the specified direction
until you pass something interesting or run into a wall.
You should experiment with this,
since it is a very useful command,
but very difficult to describe.
This also works for all movement commands.
Move down.
Move up.
Move right.
Move diagonally up and left.
Move diagonally up and right.
Move diagonally down and left.
Move diagonally down and right.
Throw an object.
This is a prefix command.
When followed with a direction
it throws an object in the specified direction.
(e.g. type
th
to throw
something to the left.)
Fight until someone dies.
When followed with a direction
this will force you to fight the creature in that direction









                             -5-


until either you or it bites the big one.
Move onto something without picking it up.
This will move you one space in the direction you specify and,
if there is an object there you can pick up,
it won't do it.
Zap prefix.
Point a staff or wand in a given direction
and fire it.
Even non-directional staves must be pointed in some direction
to be used.
Identify trap command.
If a trap is on your map
and you can't remember what type it is,
you can get rogue to remind you
by getting next to it and typing
^
followed by the direction that would move you on top of it.
Search for traps and secret doors.
Examine each space immediately adjacent to you
for the existence of a trap or secret door.
There is a large chance that even if there is something there,
you won't find it,
so you might have to search a while before you find something.
Climb down a staircase to the next level.
Not surprisingly, this can only be done if you are standing on staircase.
Climb up a staircase to the level above.
This can't be done without the Amulet of Yendor in your possession.
Rest.
This is the do nothing command.
This is good for waiting and healing.
Pick up something.
This picks up whatever you are currently standing on,
if you are standing on anything at all.
Inventory.
List what you are carrying in your pack.
Selective inventory.
Tells you what a single item in your pack is.
Quaff one of the potions you are carrying.
Read one of the scrolls in your pack.
Eat food from your pack.
Wield a weapon.
Take a weapon out of your pack and carry it for use in combat,
replacing the one you are currently using (if any).
Wear armor.
You can only wear one suit of armor at a time.
This takes extra time.
Take armor off.
You can't remove armor that is cursed.
This takes extra time.
Put on a ring.
You can wear only two rings at a time
(one on each hand).
If you aren't wearing any rings,
this command will ask you which hand you want to wear it on,









                             -6-


otherwise, it will place it on the unused hand.
The program assumes that you wield your sword in your right hand.
Remove a ring.
If you are only wearing one ring,
this command takes it off.
If you are wearing two,
it will ask you which one you wish to remove,
Drop an object.
Take something out of your pack and leave it lying on the floor.
Only one object can occupy each space.
You cannot drop a cursed object at all
if you are wielding or wearing it.
Call an object something.
If you have a type of object in your pack
which you wish to remember something about,
you can use the call command to give a name to that type of object.
This is usually used when you figure out what a
potion, scroll, ring, or staff is
after you pick it up,
or when you want to remember
which of those swords in your pack you were wielding.
Print out which things you've discovered something about.
This command will ask you what type of thing you are interested in.
If you type the character for a given type of object
(e.g.
!
for potion)
it will tell you which kinds of that type of object you've discovered
(i.e., figured out what they are).
This command works for potions, scrolls, rings, and staves and wands.
Examine and set options.
This command is further explained in the section on options.
Redraws the screen.
Useful if spurious messages or transmission errors
have messed up the display.
Print last message.
Useful when a message disappears before you can read it.
This only repeats the last message
that was not a mistyped command
so that you don't loose anything by accidentally typing
the wrong character instead of ^P.
Cancel a command, prefix, or count.
Escape to a shell for some commands.
Quit.
Leave the game.
Save the current game in a file.
It will ask you whether you wish to use the default save file.
Rogue won't let you start up a copy of a saved game,
and it removes the save file as soon as you start up a restored game.
This is to prevent people from saving a game just before a dangerous position
and then restarting it if they die.
To restore a saved game,
give the file name as an argument to rogue.
As in









                             -7-


          % rogue save_file
To restart from the default save file (see below),
run
          % rogue -r
Prints the program version number.
Print the weapon you are currently wielding
Print the armor you are currently wearing
Print the rings you are currently wearing
Reprint the status line on the message line
Rooms in the dungeons are either lit or dark.
If you walk into a lit room,
the entire room will be drawn on the screen as soon as you enter.
If you walk into a dark room,
it will only be displayed as you explore it.
Upon leaving a room,
all monsters inside the room
are erased from the screen.
In the darkness you can only see one space
in all directions around you.
A corridor is always dark.
If you see a monster and you wish to fight it,
just attempt to run into it.
Many times a monster you find will mind its own business
unless you attack it.
It is often the case that discretion is the better part of valor.
When you find something in the dungeon,
it is common to want to pick the object up.
This is accomplished in rogue by walking over the object
(unless you use the
m
prefix, see above).
If you are carrying too many things,
the program will tell you and it won't pick up the object,
otherwise it will add it to your pack
and tell you what you just picked up.
Many of the commands that operate on objects must prompt you
to find out which object you want to use.
If you change your mind and don't want to do that command after all,
just type an <ESCAPE> and the command will be aborted.
Some objects, like armor and weapons,
are easily differentiated.
Others, like scrolls and potions,
are given labels which vary according to type.
During a game,
any two of the same kind of object
with the same label
are the same type.
However,
the labels will vary from game to game.
When you use one of these labeled objects,
if its effect is obvious,
rogue will remember what it is for you.
If it's effect isn't extremely obvious
you will be asked what you want to scribble on it









                             -8-


so you will recognize it later,
or you can use the
call
command
(see above).
Some weapons,
like arrows,
come in bunches,
but most come one at a time.
In order to use a weapon,
you must wield it.
To fire an arrow out of a bow,
you must first wield the bow,
then throw the arrow.
You can only wield one weapon at a time,
but you can't change weapons if the one
you are currently wielding is cursed.
The commands to use weapons are
w
(wield)
and
t
(throw).
There are various sorts of armor lying around in the dungeon.
Some of it is enchanted,
some is cursed,
and some is just normal.
Different armor types have different armor protection.
The higher the armor protection,
the more protection the armor affords against the blows of monsters.
Here is a list of the various armor types and their normal armor protection:

box center;
l r.
  Type    Protection
None 0
Leather armor  2
Studded leather / Ring mail   3
Scale mail     4
Chain mail     5
Banded mail / Splint mail     6
Plate mail     7

If a piece of armor is enchanted,
its armor protection will be higher than normal.
If a suit of armor is cursed,
its armor protection will be lower,
and you will not be able to remove it.
However, not all armor with a protection that is lower than normal is cursed.
The commands to use weapons are
W
(wear)
and
T









                             -9-


(take off).
Scrolls come with titles in an unknown tongue5.
6 Actually, it's a dialect spoken only by the twenty-seven members
of a tribe in Outer Mongolia,
but you're not supposed to
that.
After you read a scroll,
it disappears from your pack.
The command to use a scroll is
r
(read).
Potions are labeled by the color of the liquid inside the flask.
They disappear after being quaffed.
The command to use a scroll is
q
(quaff).
Staves and wands do the same kinds of things.
Staves are identified by a type of wood;
wands by a type of metal or bone.
They are generally things you want to do to something
over a long distance,
so you must point them at what you wish to affect
to use them.
Some staves are not affected by the direction they are pointed, though.
Staves come with multiple magic charges,
the number being random,
and when they are used up,
the staff is just a piece of wood or metal.
The command to use a wand or staff is
z
(zap)
Rings are very useful items,
since they are relatively permanent magic,
unlike the usually fleeting effects of potions, scrolls, and staves.
Of course,
the bad rings are also more powerful.
Most rings also cause you to use up food more rapidly,
the rate varying with the type of ring.
Rings are differentiated by their stone settings.
The commands to use rings are
P
(put on)
and
R
(remove).
Food is necessary to keep you going.
If you go too long without eating you will faint,
and eventually die of starvation.
The command to use food is
e
(eat).
Due to variations in personal tastes
and conceptions of the way rogue should do things,
there are a set of options you can set









                            -10-


that cause rogue to behave in various different ways.
There are two ways to set the options.
The first is with the
o
command of rogue;
the second is with the
ROGUEOPTS
environment variable7.
8 On Version 6 systems,
there is no equivalent of the ROGUEOPTS feature.
When you type
o
in rogue,
it clears the screen
and displays the current settings for all the options.
It then places the cursor by the value of the first option
and waits for you to type.
You can type a <RETURN>
which means to go to the next option,
a
-
which means to go to the previous option,
an <ESCAPE>
which means to return to the game,
or you can give the option a value.
For boolean options this merely involves typing
t
for true or
f
for false.
For string options,
type the new value followed by a <RETURN>.
The ROGUEOPTS variable is a string
containing a comma separated list of initial values
for the various options.
Boolean variables can be turned on by listing their name
or turned off by putting a
no
in front of the name.
Thus to set up an environment variable so that
is on,
is off,
and the
is set to Blue Meanie,
use the command
   % setenv ROGUEOPTS "jump,noterse,name=Blue Meanie"9
10  For  those  of  you who use the Bourne shell sh (1), the
commands would be
   $ ROGUEOPTS="jump,noterse,name=Blue Meanie"
   $ export ROGUEOPTS
   Here is a list of the options and an explanation of  what
   each  one is for.  The default value for each is enclosed
   in square brackets.  For character string options,  input
   over  fifty characters will be ignored.  Useful for those









                            -11-


   who are tired of the sometimes lengthy messages of rogue.
   This is a useful option for playing on slow terminals, so
   this option defaults to if you are on a slow  (1200  baud
   or under) terminal.  If this option is set, running moves
   will not be displayed until you  reach  the  end  of  the
   move.   This  saves  considerable  cpu  and display time.
   This option defaults to if you are using a slow terminal.
   All  typeahead is thrown away after each round of battle.
   This is useful for those who  type  far  ahead  and  then
   watch  in  dismay as a Bat kills them.  Display the floor
   around you on the screen as you move through dark  rooms.
   Due  to  the  amount of characters generated, this option
   defaults to if you are using  a  slow  terminal.   Follow
   turnings in passageways.  If you run in a passage and you
   run into stone or a wall, rogue will see if it  can  turn
   to  the  right  or left.  If it can only turn one way, it
   will turn that way.  If it can turn either or neither, it
   will stop.  This algorithm can sometimes lead to slightly
   confusing  occurrences  which  is  why  it  defaults   to
   nopassgo.   Print out the tombstone at the end if you get
   killed.  This is nice but slow, so you can turn it off if
   you  like.   Inventory  type.  This can have one of three
   values: or With the top lines of the map are  overwritten
   with  the  list when inventory is requested or when Which
   item do you wish to . . .?  questions are answered with a
   *.   However, if the list is longer than a screenful, the
   screen is cleared.  With lists are displayed one item  at
   a  time  on the top of the screen, and with the screen is
   cleared, the list is  displayed,  and  then  the  dungeon
   level  is  re-displayed.  Due to speed considerations, is
   the default for  terminals  without  clear-to-end-of-line
   capabilities.  This is the name of your character.  It is
   used if you get on  the  top  ten  scorer's  list.   This
   should  hold  the  name of a fruit that you enjoy eating.
   It is basically a whimsey that rogue uses in a couple  of
   places.   The  default file name for saving the game.  If
   your phone is hung up by accident, rogue  will  automati-
   cally  save  the  game  in  this file.  The file name may
   start with the special character ~ which  expands  to  be
   your  home  directory.  Rogue usually maintains a list of
   the  top  scoring  people  or  scores  on  your  machine.
   Depending on how it is set up, it can post either the top
   scores or the top players.   In  the  latter  case,  each
   account  on  the  machine  can  post only one non-winning
   score on this list.  If you  score  higher  than  someone
   else  on  this list, or better your previous score on the
   list, you will be inserted in the proper place under your
   current  name.   How many scores are kept can also be set
   up by whoever installs it on your machine.  If  you  quit
   the  game, you get out with all of your gold intact.  If,
   however, you get killed in the  Dungeons  of  Doom,  your
   body  is forwarded to your next-of-kin, along with 90% of
   your gold; ten percent of your gold is kept by  the  Dun-
   geons'  wizard  as  a  fee11.  12 The Dungeon's wizard is









                            -12-


   named Wally the Wonder  Badger.   Invocations  should  be
   accompanied  by a sizable donation.  This should make you
   consider whether you want to take one last  hit  at  that
   monster  and  possibly  live,  or quit and thus stop with
   whatever you have.  If you quit,  you  do  get  all  your
   gold, but if you swing and live, you might find more.  If
   you just want to see what the current  top  players/games
   list is, you can type
             % rogue -s
   Rogue was originally conceived of by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy.
   Ken Arnold and Michael Toy then smoothed out the user interface,
   and added jillions of new features.
   We would like to thank
   Bob Arnold,
   Michelle Busch,
   Andy Hatcher,
   Kipp Hickman,
   Mark Horton,
   Daniel Jensen,
   Bill Joy,
   Joe Kalash,
   Steve Maurer,
   Marty McNary,
   Jan Miller,
   and
   Scott Nelson
   for their ideas and assistance;
   and also the teeming multitudes
   who graciously ignored work, school, and social life to play rogue
   and send us bugs, complaints, suggestions, and just plain flames.
   And also Mom.